Round 12 saw the first of the mid-season bye rounds and plenty of upsets across the weekend.
Former Collingwood coach and superstar Nathan Buckley has put together his takeaways in The Buck Stops Here.
On his mind this week were the disappointing Demons, advice for Harley Reid, a tick to the umpires and more.
Read and listen to his thoughts below:
“YOU HAVE TO CALL IT AS YOU SEE IT”: BUCKLEY DOUBTS DEES’ FITNESS AFTER FREO DRUBBING
Plucky, aggressive Hawks
“I want to go straight to Hawthorn versus Adelaide. It was like an Elimination Final, 12th playing 13th, Hawthorn with some momentum and Adelaide, whose best is good, but they just weren’t able to produce it,” Buckley said on SEN Breakfast.
“Sam Mitchell had a great day in the coaches box and his players were huge on the field… he’s got an army of players you could nearly interchange. They’re very similar in the way they go about it.
“They’re hard and they’re fit, they put great pressure on and the system and structure seems to be coming into play. Their back six is starting to take shape.
“And one thing I wanted to highlight. Jack Ginnivan kicked a goal just before three-quarter time and on the vision, Will Day looked aggressive, he was pumped, he was excited, I loved what I saw because it said, ‘hey, this is great, you’re good, we’re good, I’m just ready for whatever comes’.
“He was hungry. The vision was so good.”
Giving the Dogs their flowers
“The Dogs need credit for what they have been able to put together.
“They were 11th going into the weekend and they met a Collingwood side that was probably ripe for the picking but at the same time, the Dogs didn’t have Ed Richards, Tom Liberatore, Aaron Naughton or Cody Weightman – who had actually kicked eight goals in the same game against the same opposition at Marvel last year.
“It was a fantastic performance… to think the Bulldogs were just going to win easy probably underrated what Collingwood are doing and have been able to do, so they still needed to get over the line.
“I thought Adam Treloar was huge and he’s had a sneaky good year… he’s been as consistent as he’s ever been, he’s in career-best form. I thought Sam Darcy was able to maintain his focus and contribute really well and Marcus Bontempelli continues to go from strength to strength.”
How does Harley deal with his next tag?
“I want to talk about the attention Harley Reid got in the second half from Marcus Windhager and how he’s going to have to step his way through that.
“There are times when you bring this aggression and the physicality and it can bubble over. You want to have an impact and you’re losing the game, not quite doing what you want to do and you have this guy that is under your guernsey and making life hard and when you show that affects you then you’re going to welcome more of it.
“He’s going to go through this little stage now… we laud this kid, he’s got great talent and he’s going to be a great player and he’s already doing great things but he is going to get attention. He’s only a dozen games in, this challenge, he’s still going to be learning things about himself, the competition, what opposition coaches and players are going to throw at him to get him off his game.
“It’s not just about your skill and talent, not about your fitness and physical capacity, it’s about how do you front up mentally and emotionally week after week.”
A big tick to the new holding the ball interpretation
“Loved it. My opinion is that the reasonable time adjustment has been a long time coming… I’ve been on the prior side of things because… when you look at a ball carrier versus a tackler, it has been so weighted to a carrier.
“I’m not talking about a ball-winner, but the carrier who might have received a handball, might have taken a mark and played on. The ball carrier has controlled too much of the game and umpiring and the interpretation of the rules has slowed that for too long.
“There are so many ways the tackler can give a free kick away and very difficult for him to win the free kick. I think we’ve found a better parity with that. I think I saw evidence with the shortening of reasonable time, the ball carrier, especially in the back 50 or elements through the midfield, if he didn’t like what he saw, we didn’t see the ball carrier finding an opposition player, take the tackle and get a stoppage.
“I just thought it was a quicker tempo, the ball ups were quicker, congestion dispersed quicker, it was easier to umpire, easier to understand. It wasn’t perfect… and I don’t think we should be expecting perfection in the way the game is umpired. But I thought it was a great step towards having greater parity.”